garden update

 our garden is doing great after most of the hail was south of us, they really enjoyed the rain that came with the storm.

Every year I attempt herbs and we had some left over starters so Ryan put some of the extra lettuce in a big pot.  he got the idea from our farmers market that had a big beautiful  lettuce bowl, and it was so full and pretty it almost looked like a decoration.  So that's what we're going for.  A decoration we can eat.

 This is our lettuce, spinach, and a small pepper plant to the right.  Below are our broccoli, cauliflauer plants in the front, with the tomatoe plants to the right, and peas in the back left growing up their supports.  The eggplant I think is in the middle.  They're still alive but don't seem to be growing much.  Hopefully they'll take off when it gets hotter.

 And here are our baby tomatoes and more blossoms.  Aren't they cute?!

 

Tornado clean up day

We went to St. John on Sunday to help clean up for Grandma Waddle after her surgery.  We got to see a lot of the mess that the tornado made.  It stripped a bunch of trees  and there was debris in several areas, telephone poles snapped in half, trees uprooted.

We stopped in Yoder, a Mennonite/Amish community just outside of Wichita.  We showed the kids their buggies and horse teams all "parked" while they were inside for church.  I love the caution signs on the back.  They are necessary because they will cross the interstate on those things.  Kindof like Frogger but with a horse and buggy.

There were so many trees stripped bare and snapped in half and some were uprooted altogether.  there were telephone poles ripped off and lying in the fields, along with power lines

There was metal debris  thrown all around too.  As you ca see it is twisted and bent in many ways

The scene from Ryan's Grandparents' front porch wasn't much better. There was a whole sheet of siding or a door or something across the road, plus the pivots that water the fields were knocked upside down. The roof on the house across the field was ripped off which you can see with binoculars

And of course the drive home the kids were happy snuggling with Tobie and watching a movie in the car.  It doesn't take much at that age.

Tornado Day

For those of you NOT interested in following the midwest weather, Saturday we had a terrifying day of high risk of tornados and Wichita was right in the center of if. It was apparently a rare weather phenomenon where the jet stream air and the gulf air meet and one feeds the other coninually to cause many prolonged and sustained tornadoes. Last I heard there were somewhere around 136 tornados reported in Kansas that day, the most ever. We of course we scared witless (well, just me) and hovered around our basement all day.  Ryan and I slept here Friday night

Ryan had the brilliant idea to put up the tent in Charity's old room to tell the kids we would go "camping" downstairs for a few nights.  They promptly filled it with coloring supplies and their balloons from Farmer's market Saturday morning

 

 And of course as the Garrison family well knows you can't go camping with a buffet picnic

Saturday night Ryan ended up pulling the mattresses under the stairway so we could all just sleep and not focus on the storms.  Yeah right.

Here is our yard debris.  I thought it was funny until I saw our fence

  

Easter

Isabelle's eggs she colored at Aunt Mary's house

Sydney got a tinkerbell umbrella (on the floor) in her easter basket

Gideon got a lego  star wars 3D backpack

Isabelle got a 30 pack of Velvits posters, the kind you color in with markers and the rest of the picture is black velvet

Gid counting his eggs

Syd posing

Isa being ever helpful and pointing one out  for someone else

Nature in progress

Ryan discovered a dove nesting in our tree out front, with 2 tiny eggs.  The kids, including neighbor kids, like to check on her every couple of days.

I couldn't wait any longer to start picking my herbs.  For some reason I love to try to grow herbs every year, even though I'm not that great at it, though I'm feeling confident this year!  My basil is already doing well, and the others, well, we'll see =)

Easter with the in-laws

We did a small easter egg hunt with Grandma Diane while she was here last weekend

Sydney had a hard time finding this egg that she was standing right next to for 2 minutes.  We kept telling her to turn around and she'd look into the sky or on the ground not at eye level.

Aunt Debby was along for the fun

Here is the first picture of our Charity that I'm posting.  She's now almost 18 and has left the house, so I can begin to put pictures of her up now I think.  Please pray for her as she begins to make her way in life on her own.  Pray that God will make Himself known to her and she will be kept safe until that day when she recognizes her need for Him.